School Board Term Limits to be placed on Florida’s 2018 ballot

I have some excellent news!

Yesterday, the Education Committee of Florida’s Constitutional Revision Commission unanimously passed our measure asking for School Board Term Limits to be placed on Florida’s 2018 ballot.

Before the vote, the commissioners cited the high volume of positive citizen emails and phone calls as a major reason they voted “YES”. That means your activism made the difference!

With this vote, we are one big step closer to allowing all Florida voters to choose whether to term limit School Board members.

If the measure gets on the ballot and passes next year, all 356 elected School Board members in Florida will face a term limit of eight years. Right now, just one county out of 67 has term limits.

I testified at the Committee meeting yesterday (watch the video below) and I can tell you we were not without opposition.

Some of the most powerful lobbyists and cronies in Tallahassee came out to try to sink term limits. Of course, they’re all nervous that term limits will disrupt the profitable relationships they’ve purchased with incumbent politicians. What a shame, huh?

Thankfully, the Committee listened to the people rather than the insiders. Commissioner Erika Donalds, a Collier County School Board member and the lead sponsor of the proposal, made a great case for term limits in her remarks. Donalds flattened the lobbyists’ weak arguments by noting that the entrenchment of incumbents makes it impossible to have a level playing field without term limits.

I’ve already thanked Commissioner Donalds for her pro-term limits effort. If you’d also like to thank her, she may be contacted here: donale@collierschools.com

The next step in this process is getting 22 of the Commission’s 37 members to vote to officially place this on the ballot. That’s a challenge, but it’s not one that Florida’s grassroots term limits supporters cannot handle. Our movement is committed to adding term limits wherever they don’t exist and protecting them where they do.

We’ve term-limited the Governor, the state legislature, the cabinet and tons of county and city politicians. We got the Florida Legislature to apply for the Term Limits Convention, and held plenty of rogue elected officials accountable when they tried to overstay their limits.

Now it’s time to bring that winning energy and focus to Florida School Boards. With your help, we will make School Board term limits a reality.

Please click this link to send a pre-written email or call the Florida Constitution Review Commission members.

Thank you,

Nick Tomboulides
Executive Director
U.S. Term Limits
termlimits.org

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